


dawn was breaking the bones of your heart

by redevenait



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Depression, M/M, Me7ntio7ns of drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redevenait/pseuds/redevenait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jean Prouvaire felt suddenly as if he was in a play. He trembled with the force of his anger, emotion coursing through him like a terrible tsunami. He was overflowing; his body didn’t seem to quite fit anymore, and it seemed to him as if the empty space in the centre of the bar where he stood was his stage. Opposite him, Enjolras played another character, another pantomimed version of reality."</p>
<p>Jehan seeks solace and finds something cold where he once saw light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dawn was breaking the bones of your heart

The silence that gaped between them was jagged. It was a deathly kind of silence, the kind that seduced souls only to watch them dissolve in its acidic wasteland. The Musain was full that night, but the entire room seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the next move on the immobilised battlefield before them.

Jean Prouvaire felt suddenly as if he was in a play. He trembled with the force of his anger, emotion coursing through him like a terrible tsunami. He was overflowing; his body didn’t seem to quite fit anymore, and it seemed to him as if the empty space in the centre of the bar where he stood was his stage. Opposite him, Enjolras played another character, another pantomimed version of reality.

It was oppressive, in that room, on that night. It had been a warm day and their argument turned the atmosphere into that strange kind of bone-drying heat. There was a slight sheen of sweat that coated Enjolras’ face and made him shine a little under the lights.

Jehan thought he might faint.

Enjolras had been taken by surprise earlier, when Jehan had begun to argue. The softly-spoken poet did not often disagree so emphatically with an opinion of his, and their conflicts were few and far between. When they did argue, however, they were blazing fights, full of desperate passion and furious conviction. And tonight had been their worst argument to date.

It had begun as Enjolras explained their next demonstration. This, he proposed, would be the move that really shocked people into paying attention to them. The collateral damage that it would cause was a necessary evil.

“No.” Jehan had cut him off midsentence. “It is as unnecessary as it is evil.”

This made Enjolras stumble, but he lost no belief in his plan. “Peaceful protesting has done us no good, Prouvaire. Can’t you see that? We need this push.”

“Not at the Champ de Mars. There will be innocent people there – tourists and children will be caught up and hurt! Do you want that on your head, Enjolras? I will not have it on mine.”

Their words quickly fell from debate to duel, each man completely sure of the validity of their opinions. They were eloquent men, full of belief and anger, and this fuelled them into something truly terrible. As their friends watched in muted horror they unleashed verbal claws, tearing into each other and leaving red wounds.

Until, finally, that awful silence.

Enjolras bristled before him. His words rang in Jehan’s ears. “ _You mistake goodness for weakness_.” Was he weak? Whilst coursing with a passion that let him breathe its fire into his words, Jehan had felt strong. Now the silence caressed his bones and corroded them. Jehan sensed the colour that had ignited him seep away, drawn to Enjolras’ superior light, colouring the other man and intensifying the reds and golds that made him shine until his image was burnt onto Jehan’s retina’s.

Jehan was left grey and pale. “Maybe I am weak,” his voice did not tremble. “But I will not follow you blindly down this path.”

He turned and left the café.

As he walked away, he could hear the people inside reanimating, as if woken from enchanted sleep. He imagined them converging on Enjolras, Les Amis surrounding him and giving him their comfort and allegiance. His mind’s eye showed him Enjolras complaining to Combeferre as the others listened and nodded seriously. “ _Yes_ ,” he pictured them saying, “ _Yes, Prouvaire is not truly one of us._ ”

Desperate passion had given way to desperate melancholy. As Jehan walked down the dark street he felt it settle on and in him. He sometimes thought of this depression as his personal layer of dust that persistently clung to his skin, no matter how much he tried to brush it away. He wasn’t sure where to walk. Usually when depression claimed him he would visit Grantaire. Grantaire _understood_ like nobody else Jehan knew. He would let Jehan be quiet, knowing he was too overcome to verbalise his emotional state. Then, when the time was right, he would produce opiates and allow them to sink together into a chemical haze.

Tonight, however, Grantaire was away, competing in a fencing tournament against a rival university. Jehan was pleased for him, but mourned the loss of his favoured distraction. He had never gained a taste for getting high alone; without Grantaire to sit beside him and paint constellations on his arms as they smoked the effect was not as comforting.

His feet carried him back to his flat. Jehan lived alone, and although he often rejoiced in the freedom and privacy, there was a pervasive loneliness in the air that he could not shake. He sank into his sofa without switching on the light.

In the dark, there were no distractions from the stormy seas. He could barely see the room around him. There was only the moonlight, sapping the room of its jumbled colours that by day seemed friendlier. Jehan was very aware, in those moments, of just how alone he was.

The anger that had engulfed him, ignited him, not half an hour earlier felt like a dim memory, a half-dream. Weariness pervaded his bones until he was left barely feeling.

_I need to find the fire again_. The thought latched to the back of his mind and blossomed outwards until it was his singular purpose. Jehan lived for emotions, great, extraordinary emotions. And whilst his current state had rendered him temporarily incapable of those emotions, there were ways other than opium to escape from the clutching depression.

It was nearly midnight when Jehan arrived at Courfeyrac’s flat.

“Is Marius home?” He asked by way of greeting when courfeyrac opened the door to see him, shivering slightly and looking ten shades of exhausted.

Courfeyrac shook his head. “No,” he began, but before he could continue Jehan lurched forward and kissed him, thin fingers twisting into dark curls and clenching tightly enough to hurt.

For a moment Courfeyrac kissed him back automatically, the familiarity of dry lips and clutching embraces inspiring a natural reciprocation. Reciprocity was what Jehan came to him for, after all. But their kiss broke too soon. Courfeyrac pulled his head away and gently disengaged Jehan’s fingers from his hair. Not wishing to continue without Courfeyrac’s usual enthusiastic participation, Jehan took a step back. Recognising the flight signals dancing in the dark eyes before him, courfeyrac caught Jehan’s wrist in a soft hand.

“This isn’t a good idea.” His voice was gentle, but Courfeyrac’s words made Jehan’s mouth twist unbidden into an expression of disappointment. “You’re upset. We were worried about you.”

“No, you weren’t. You were all far too caught up in Enjolras.”

“Don’t, Jehan-“

“Don’t what? Don’t tell you the truth?” Courfeyrac’s hand was still around Jehan’s wrist – Jehan yanked it away. “You’re all ready to follow him blindly into this, and it’s wrong, courfeyrac, it’s not what I joined you for.”

Courfeyrac shook his head, and then stepped back into the house. “Come in and sit down, and I’ll tell you what happened after you left.” Courfeyrac’s flat was small but homely, painted warm, neutral colours. Jehan came here often with the group, but rarely alone. They usually met at Jehan’s home for their trysts, where they had some privacy. Walking in now, Jehan felt like a wild creature meeting its domesticated counterpart. He was always aware of that gulf between himself and courfeyrac, but tonight it was even more pronounced.

They sat down, arranged oddly formally on the small sofa. Jehan watched courfeyrac in silence. Shifting slightly under his gaze, Courfeyrac began. “After you left, the rest of us started debating between ourselves. Enjolras was still adamant that we should go through with the protest, and a few of the others were in agreement, but you sowed doubt.

“Combeferre and I took Enjolras aside. He was pretty shaken by your argument, I think. We’re working on him. Combeferre wants to talk him out of it gradually, starting by trying to find another place to hold the protest.” He fell quiet, as if running out of words.

“You know Enjolras; if you try to take it slowly it’ll only leave more time for the idea to take root.” Jehan was so tired. “That protest will lead to another, bigger one, in a bigger place, and then we’re back here again.”

“It’s how change-“

“And there you go, parroting Enjolras. Courfeyrac, you know I’m not adverse to fighting, you know it’s not a concern for my personal safety. But for the children? The innocents who will be caught up in this? Not to mention the opposing backlash.” He closed his eyes, sighing. “I’ve said all this before. I don’t know why you asked me in.”

“You can’t be alone right now.”

“You don’t have a choice in that, actually. I came here because I wanted to be fucked. Not for a lecture and some pity.”

He stood, anger and sadness swirling inside of him, their sickly Technicolor starting to give him a headache. Courfeyrac followed him to his feet. “Please, stay.”

Jehan hated himself for how those two words made him wilt a little. Courfeyrac open face, his genuine concern and kindness were hard to resist. He was used to melancholy and he thrived on the gothic, but he was not immune to loneliness. Courfeyrac was born an antidote to loneliness, Jehan had realised long ago.

“Why do you want me to stay?”

Jehan felt an awful wave of déjà vu. He was again standing opposite someone, in some kind of conflict, except this time he felt a lot less sure of himself as he watched courfeyrac. The other man seemed to be struggling to say something. A fist of dread clenched inside Jehan as he watched the words make their way from Courfeyrac’s stomach up his throat to his mouth, like bile.

“Jehan, you know… I care about you.” The words seemed weak, but Jehan could hear their true meaning as clearly as if Courfeyrac had shouted them. ‘ _Don’t make me say it out loud_ ,’ Courfeyrac’s eyes pleaded. ‘ _Don’t make me_.’

For the second time in that eternal night, Jehan’s world was engulfed in liquid silence. He had been sleeping with courfeyrac for months, had thought it was merely a mutually beneficial sexual arrangement. Love had no place between them, except for the love between friends. But that was not true, it appeared. Jehan felt as though the solid ground beneath his feet had turned to quicksand.

Courfeyrac was watching him, torn between hope and fear.

This was not the fire Jehan had been searching for. This wasn’t flame, it was swallowing dry spices, the burn and the nausea making him want to wince. He didn’t _know_ how he felt about courfeyrac. Confusion raged within him, coupled with that familiar roaring self-loathing at his own ignorance.

To dispel the feelings, he stepped forward and kissed courfeyrac again. This time, courfeyrac allowed the kiss to deepen, snaking his arms around Jehan’s slim waist and pulling him in closer. From Courfeyrac’s almost desperate enthusiasm, Jehan knew he had chosen to take the kiss as a responding admission of love.

They didn’t speak, but there was a certain odd tenderness between them as courfeyrac led Jehan into the bedroom and they graduated to the bed, still clutching at each other. This was a familiar pattern, by now. Jehan knew Courfeyrac’s body as well as his own, knew the way his skin felt covered in sweat, knew the sounds he made when he was close to orgasm. And yet something about this time was different. There was no whining, no begging; no sound but rough breathing and the sound of skin on skin.

Courfeyrac moved with him, captured in a passion that seemed almost otherworldly. He seemed determined to keep his eyes open, as if afraid of missing something. Jehan kept his eyes shut and tried to escape his own mind.

With a sudden shout, courfeyrac came first, followed by Jehan and a silent sigh. They collapsed on the bed together, intertwined until Jehan twisted away and fell into a light sleep. He had found a sort of fire and it had cooled in him until he was left with an oily, cold feeling in his lungs. He slept in a gesture of giving up.

Courfeyrac remained wide awake. He watched Jehan’s ribcage rise and fall. There was some kind of aching inside of him, one he was used to after all this time, one that came when he looked and Jehan and wouldn’t leave for hours. He had imagined, fuck, he had hoped so hard, that he would tell Jehan how he felt – feels – and they would have a romantic moment, and he would stop aching, and the world would tilt back to something comfortable.

Not like this. He had never wanted it to happen like this, this uncomfortable half-confession. He had taken Jehan’s kiss and translated it into reciprocation, but now, in the too-warm bedroom with the light of a streetlamp burnishing Jehan’s skin into a golden brown before him, he was forced to face the truth. Jehan did not love him.

He could not remember ever feeling so empty. Without even realising it, in that moment Courfeyrac tasted a little of the iron sadness that clung to Jehan. Eyes still on Jehan’s back, Courfeyrac lay awake for the rest of the night and waited for the taste to pass.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'visible world' by richard silken.
> 
> this fic is dedicated to katie (annieanglia/courfeyquack on tumblr), who keeps me going.


End file.
